


Galatea Unset

by Val Mora (valmora)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Finnish Civil War, M/M, WWII, soldier kink, time period: modern day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-01
Updated: 2010-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-28 02:49:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/pseuds/Val%20Mora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sweden and Finland find a memorial on their travels, and Sweden thinks on war, and on his beloved. (modern-day)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Galatea Unset

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/10456.html?thread=19375064#t19375064) for [this prompt](http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/10530.html?thread=15906594#t15906594) and kindexed [here](http://community.livejournal.com/hetalia_kindex/1385505.html).
> 
> The statue described was one whose photograph I saw while reading a book on Finnish history; I didn't manage to scan the photo, so I had to use a little creative license. I believe the real one was near Vyborg/Viipuri, and would therefore be part of Russia now.

North by car, on the twice-yearly trip to visit all of Finland’s provinces. It’s slow going, because Finland has them stop every hour or so to look at landmarks, parks, beautiful gardens, scenic lakes. Sweden doesn’t mind. Finland is beautiful in all his forms, land and limb.

Their fifteenth, or nineteenth, or maybe only eighth, stop is a small charming park, well-kept and sparely green, rocky with little pockets of flowers here and there. And in a corner beneath a pine tree, a stone memorial with a bronze statue atop.

Sweden walks over to it, touches the side of the stone block. Looks over the inscription, catches words of Finnish here and there, but not enough to catch the meaning.

“It’s so peaceful here,” Finland says, coming to stand beside him.

Sweden nods. “What’s ‘t for?”

Finland reaches to trace the bas-relief edge of an _o_ with one finger. “A memorial to the dead of the White forces in my civil war.”

Sweden’s eyes fall to watch the stone. Few Red memorials, because Finland had been so full of hate that he had buried a part of himself in silence.

He looks up, from the letters in the stone to the cast-metal figure above. Sees the long muscles, lithe body folded back in pain, naked body draped in a bronze flag. Bloody ground and the Cross and a soldier’s helmet.

“…that’s you,” he says, with a heart so tightened that he feels nothing at all.

“Mm.” When Sweden looks over, Finland’s eyes are closed, lips curved up in not-quite a smile of soft-edged happiness. “Yes. I don’t think he knew who I was, but it was a funny coincidence, don’t you think? He made me look good, too.”

It’s a lovely statue. Sweden can see Finland’s ribs, made plain by the stretch of his chest as he leans back. Swell of his thigh muscless, all that strength held in tension by folded legs. And the flag draped across the low of his hips, like blanket or scant consolation or lover or self, covering but in the doing bringing to attention. Accenting the beauty of his land, bone and sinew, all himself and willing to make war for it.

“He made ‘t look like you.”

Finland reaches to take his hand.

“Y’make death in battle look…” Tragic. Beautiful. So deeply erotic Sweden can taste his own blood, pulse-pound in his mouth. “…glorious.”

Finland hums softly, slides a hand to the back of Sweden’s head, pulls him down – and rises onto his toes – for a kiss that hints at darkened bedrooms and the smell of blood and gunpowder.

“Let’s go,” Finland says, eventually.

Sweden waits while Finland takes pictures and then they get back to driving. Two stops later – for dinner, and then ice cream and then the antiques shop that Finland stumbles across – they stop for the night in one of Finland’s little lakeside cabins.

The house is a little chilly, so they put together a fire, and after a while of being huddled up in some blankets Finland takes a shower. Emerges sticky and flushed, and naked-lovely. He laughs when he sees Sweden looking at him, and shooes Sweden into the shower.

Under the spray of water, Sweden rests his forearm on the shower wall, leans his head against it. Either the sculptor of that statue was homosexual or especially patriotic. No one else could have given the figure that much life, to bring to the eye all the rawness of Finland’s body and heart.

He tries not to think of dragging away that flag draped over Finland’s body. Bronze cold under his hands, coming to life as he draws the flag away. No longer metal but transforming into cloth and flesh, warming beneath his finertips. Except for that helmet, steel heavy to his senses, and –

He cuts that thought off because he’s supposed to be neutral, because the implements of war are not beautiful, not erotic. If only his body would agree.

He finishes his shower and walks naked out of the bathroom, sees something on the bed. Stops.

Finland. Not quite like the statue. Not stone and metal. Lying on his back, one leg folded beneath himself and the other bent. Ribs a skipping stretch down to his belly and the rise-fall of muscle and breath. And. Finland’s own flag, sky and snow, draped over his lap between his legs just enough to slip from modest to tantalizing. Pooling on the bedsheets.

Finland’s hand shifts on the bed. Draws Sweden’s attention to the shape of steel over his head, undented helmet. Nineteen-seventeen style. Lovely as death.

Sweden doesn’t even have the breath to swear. Somehow he reaches the side of the bed, sees Finland’s closed eyes. Kneels by the side of the bed and reaches to lay his hand heavily – enough to keep from tickling – on Finland’s belly. Slides his hand centimetres lower, slipping beneath the edge of the flag, warm soft skin against his palm. Lower still, to feel rough wiry hair against his fingertips.

In his peripheral vision, something moves; he looks and sees that Finland has opened his eyes, shadowed by the brim of the helmet. Lips parted. Sweden rises to standing and bends over the bed to kiss him. Tastes water and salt in Finland’s mouth as Finland returns the kiss and reaches behind Sweden’s head to pull him down. Until Sweden has to crawl onto the bed and kneel above him. Until he’s lying between Finland’s legs, skin to skin above where the flag comes between them and muffles the pressure of their arousal, one hand holding up Finland’s head against the discomfort of the helmet and the other laid against his side, fingers slipped along the soft spaces between his ribs.

Finland picks up the leg not folded under himself and hooks it over Sweden’s shoulder, breaks the kiss in warning and unfolds himself enough that his other leg unbends. The flag slips down enough that it falls away from between them, and Sweden moans at the sudden heat of Finland’s bare skin, sticky and sweet against him.

Finland holds him tight, their bodies pressed close and warm as they rock against each other. Sweden’s arousal skids friction-uncomfortable sticky against Finland’s in their combined grasp, rough and good and better with the thought of how well Finland handles gun and knife –

Finland tightens his grip, slides closer into Sweden, thrusts quick and shallow against him, and Sweden feels his pulse break, heady. Finland holding him, holding them both.

“’ll do ‘t,” Sweden says, spitting into his hand and taking hold of Finland. Heat against his palm, and skin that gives just a little over hardness. Finland cries out and wraps his arms tighter around Sweden, and Sweden bends to kiss his neck. The helmet, fallen off, trembles with the shifting of the mattress and knocks into Sweden’s head. Not painful, just sudden and surprising as Finland thrusts into his hand once more and comes. War cast aside in favor of love.


End file.
